Fastest way to check if a string matches a regexp in ruby?

Question

What is the fastest way to check if a string matches a regular expression in Ruby?

My problem is that I have to \"egrep\" through a huge list of strings to find whic

Answer 1

What about re === str (case compare)?

Since it evaluates to true or false and has no need for storing matches, returning match index and that stuff, I wonder if it would be an even faster way of matching than =~.

---

Ok, I tested this. =~ is still faster, even if you have multiple capture groups, however it is faster than the other options.

BTW, what good is freeze? I couldn't measure any performance boost from it.